Who will we meet next, working at a hostel

If you are looking for a job at a hostel check out our vacancies page working at a hostel. DERWENTWATER INDEPENDENT HOSTEL is an exciting place to work! Whether you are backstage in the potwash, hoovering the east wing, or pulling back the curtains, there is always an entertaining or inspiring variety show on display: we look out on sets of bikes and bridesmaids, kayaks and clipboards, route cards and rescue dogs, ceilidhs and callers, scouts and school groups, foresters and fell shoes, archers and artists, medics and musicians, bus passes and bird spotters, wetsuits and walkers, Indonesian stilts, and willow sculptures. The number of scene changes would exhaust a theatre stage hand, but we are never tired by the props, stories, and personalities that we come across at the hostel. Here is a small sample from last year (2014)…
One of the first scenes of the year was played out over a damp few days in January, taking place in every nook and cranny of the hostel and grounds: enter 50 dogs and their volunteer handlers and dogsbodies for the annual Search and Rescue Dog Association Assessment Weekend. There were dogs and their handlers everywhere (no dogs inside the hostel though), but thankfully they were all very well behaved!

Things you see working in a hostel – dog training

After a brief interval, in which local musician Sycamore Sykes took to the floor and entertained a fantastic audience, the hostel became a buzzing centre of international debate, with young people from all over the world coming together for the biennial Encompass Trust Journey of Understanding programme. Participants from Indonesia, Palestine, Israel, North America, and Europe shared a rich array of cultures, beliefs, thoughts and ideas, and the dark February evenings were filled with bright ideas, presentations and performances, including an Indonesian stilt dance.
In March the hostel became a beautiful setting for two very different weddings. Both wedding parties transformed the hostel with their own decorations and activities, and our rooms were variously adorned with Himalayan prayer flags, homemade flowers, colourful bunting, and decorative signs. The scenes seemed to shift seamlessly between a ceremony by the waterfall, a fell race from the terrace, a cake competition in the self-catering kitchen, a disco in the dining room, and a ceilidh that coursed through the walls and the floor!

Things you see working in a hostel – Wedding

Between these two beautifully staged weddings, our table tennis room became the Green Room for some incredible stage make-up. Several volunteers transformed themselves into casualties, with some very realistic gashes and deformities. This alarming scene was part of the Expedition Medicine course, in which over 60 medics learnt about medical care in different environments, practising new techniques in simulated situations.
During the summer season we hosted 2 more wedding receptions, lots of school groups, some interesting youth groups, several hardworking conservation volunteers, lots of trail runners and triathletes, and many happy families. We also saw a baby red squirrel in our grounds! What a performance: encore encore we’d love to see more!

Derwentwater Independent Hostel is show on our maps of hostels in Cumbria.